The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation today filed a
motion for immediate consideration at the Michigan Court of Appeals in Grand
Rapids, asking the court to force the Michigan Employment Relations Commission
to allow the MCLF to represent hundreds of graduate student research assistants
at the University of Michigan who object to being forced into a union.

MERC voted 2-1 on Dec. 13, 2011, to reject a motion
filed by the MCLF on behalf of the 370-member “Students Against GRSA
Unionization.” MERC assigned the case to an administrative law judge, who will
determine if the Graduate Employees Organization can conduct a vote to unionize
the students. As it stands now, only the union and the university will be
allowed testify before the ALJ, meaning only pro-union testimony will be given.

“Our clients are being denied due process,” said
MCLF Director Patrick Wright. “That’s why we decided to take this to the Court
of Appeals. Such a one-sided hearing would trample our clients’ rights. These
students are not university employees. They are not public employees and
therefore are not subject to unionization.”

This is not the first time MERC has addressed this
issue.

“MERC already decided this in 1981, involving this
very same group of students,” Wright added. “After 19 days and thousands of
exhibits and hundreds of pages of legal briefs, the commission ruled that
graduate student research assistants are students, period. The facts have not
changed since 1981 and neither MERC nor the GEO have shown the facts to have
changed.”

Regents at U-M voted
6-2 along party lines last May to allow the GEO to pursue the unionization,
disregarding objections from President Mary Sue Coleman. A letter
signed by the deans of 19 of the 20 colleges and schools within the university
and sent to Provost Phlip Hanlon said the deans had concerns about the
“potential negative impacts that would result from” such a unionization.

“This was ultimately about political considerations
and money, rather than what is in the best interests of the university,” Wright
said. “The GEO stands to take about $1 million in dues a year from these
students if they are successful, and the GEO, it should be noted, is affiliated
with the American Federation of Teachers.

The MCLF filed its first motion
with MERC last July, opposing the election on behalf of Melinda Day,
a graduate student research assistant at U-M. At the time, MERC upheld the law,
rejecting the GEO’s petition to hold a union vote.

“They even cited the 1981 ruling,” Wright said.
“Obviously they recognize the precedence. Nothing has changed since 1981 and
nothing has changed since August.”

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who also
saw his motion to intervene rejected by MERC last month, was also to file an
emergency appeal in Grand Rapids today. The attorney general’s office, however,
is not seeking to represent any individual students or the MCLF’s clients, but
rather the interests of the state of Michigan.

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